The Silencing Of Chelsea Manning Puts Power Before Freedom Of Speech

The Silencing Of Chelsea Manning Puts Power Before Freedom Of Speech2017-09-162017-09-16https://popularresistance-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/2017/12/popres-shorter.pngPopularResistance.Orghttps://popularresistance-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/2017/09/gettyimages-457071519-150x100.jpg200px200px

Above Photo: Harvard University have rescinded their invitation to Chelsea Manning, former US soldier and whistleblower Getty

There are difficult questions for Chelsea Manning to answer. As a visiting fellow – someone expected to speak publicly, answer questions, and be confronted by different opinions – everyone might have benefited

It is ironic that the most powerful most fear powerlessness. Enter Harvard University.

I agree. Indeed, so would most proponents of the ostensibly-American ideal of free speech. There are difficult questions for Chelsea Manning to answer. As a visiting fellow – someone expected to speak publicly, answer questions, and be confronted by different opinions – everyone might have benefited. She may still visit to speak, but will not be available for the same level of engagement. As graduate student Natalia Cote Muñoz told me: “However you feel about Manning, we would have the opportunity to engage her if she were a fellow.”

This, then, is not a decision about free speech, nor is it really a decision about the merits or demerits of Chelsea Manning’s actions. This is a decision about power.

Chelsea Manning says she had a ‘responsibility to the public’ to leak a trove of classified documents

Thus began a completely imbalanced – and consequently very short – power battle. In the blue corner: the intelligence and defence establishment of the United States of America, including some significant individual and organisational donors to the Kennedy School. In the red corner: a young, isolated, recently-released-from-prison member of the transgender community.

Many students are furious, pointing out a perceived lack of consistency in the Kennedy School’s approach. Michael Galant, currently studying public policy and formerly employed by the United Nations, says: “[They are] happy to have fellows who have spent their careers fighting against the rights of LGBTQ persons: Jason Chaffetz. And fellows who blame the Sandy Hook shooting on a lack of religion in public schools: Mike Huckabee.

“But when someone risks her freedom to expose a disregard for civilian life at the hands of the military, she is the one whose invitation we rescind. The blatancy of elite interests is appalling.”

I do not necessarily share Michael’s views on the other fellows he mentions, but it is certainly a shame that the decision to silence Ms Manning means that while other fellows will be called on to defend their positions, she will not have the opportunity to do so. Tweeting on Thursday, she wrote: “Honored to be 1st disinvited trans woman visiting @harvard fellow…they chill marginalized voices under @cia pressure.”

It would be a mistake to blame the Kennedy School’s Dean, or any one individual, for this unfunny comedy of errors. Instead, Harvard, and other institutions like the CIA, should reflect on their contributions to a power structure which repeatedly seems to quash dissenting voices.

Real leadership – really educating the citizens of the future in Harvard’s case, or really protecting America’s integrity in the CIA’s case – is about helping communities to address difficult challenges. Questions of whistleblowing versus betrayal and issues of gender identity certainly constitute such challenges.

That is why it is a great shame that the most powerful and best university in the world chose to cover its ears and shut its eyes.

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